The Premier League is back and computer game Football Manager is toasting 20 years of providing a soccer fix 24/7/365.

Bye bye social life: Football Manager is back

Ladies, beware. Your man may be hiding inappropriate content on his computer and there’s every chance he’s sneaking a peak right now but is too ashamed to admit it.

Football Manager, also known as Championship Manager or simply ‘Champ Man’ to habitual users, has been blamed for wrecking countless relationships – it’s been cited in 35 divorce cases.

The simulation game lets you take charge of a football club with frightening degrees of accuracy. Tell-tale signs of dependence include donning a suit for matches, assembling an audience of stuffed toys to represent journalists during press conferences or even applying for real jobs as a football manager based solely on a CV of accomplishments in the game – all actual events.

To beat an addiction, you must first admit you have a problem and that’s the premise for a new book marking the game’s 20th anniversary.

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Football Manager Stole My Life chronicles the stories of the creators, players, celebrities and even professional footballers caught up in the goal net.

Co-author Iain Macintosh tells Life: ‘What’s more astonishing is the 35 divorces are the only ones where it’s mentioned in the paperwork. I think if you investigated “unreasonable behaviour” further, you’d find thousands of marriages wrecked by Football Manager.

‘There’s a story about a guy whose wife and kids leave him and return to the US because of the game, then he meets another woman and that relationship breaks down because of it. And then he says: “But it’s OK now. I’ve met a new woman and she lets me play as much as I like, so it just goes to show if you wait long enough you’ll find the right person.” That is not the lesson to take from this story.’

Despite the warning signs, Macintosh admits to being a user and a pusher. He says: ‘My wife still looks at it with, I think, disappointment, but I guess everyone succumbs to some kind of addiction.

‘I’ve had friends who had never been exposed to it and I’ve led them down a dark path. I feel like Renton to Tommy in Trainspotting. A number of my friends’ girlfriends are unimpressed with me.’

Conceived by schoolboy brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer, writing computer code on an Amstrad 6128 in 1980s Cheshire, it became an obsession that took over their lives. Oliver says: ‘We just referred to it as The Game. You know, have you done any more work on The Game?’ Paul adds: ‘I dropped out of university because of this. Basically, I spent too much time drinking beer and doing The Game.’

With a database of 1,500 players and 150 computer-controlled managers, the brothers wrote to 20 publishers with the idea. Two replied, one offered a deal and it’s gone on to sell 20million copies.

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‘It got panned by the critics,’ Macintosh says. ‘They said it was like watching a spreadsheet, but the difference was that instead of you being at the centre and the computer bringing you opponents, it created a universe and dropped you into it. It didn’t really care if you did well or not. If you did badly, the game would just sack you and move on. The greatest thing about it is that pressure, knowing that you’ve got to do well or you’ll be out of work and won’t get to play. It’s high-pressure micro-management on a ludicrous scale.’

It’s also an early example of crowd sourcing, with fans worldwide sending in reports on players to feature in the game. A team of 51 researchers and 1,000 assistants now exist – a larger scouting network than most football clubs command – and led to the likes of Everton licensing the player database to uncover hidden talent.

Oliver says: ‘We’re talking about a time when we barely even had the internet. We used to send out printed charts to fanzines to be filled out and sent back.’

With the latest game in the series, FM13, due out in a matter of weeks, Macintosh is now planning to write novels under the banner ‘Football Manager Fiction’ based on events within the game. He adds: ‘Maybe it’s the male version of chick lit? A Fifty Shades for the football fan.’

A study by the University of Bristol has been aiming to discover whether football fans love their club more than their wife or girlfriend. The School of Experimental Psychology teamed up with sports brand Puma and put supporters through a serious of tests under lab conditions. To find out how they got on visit www.loveorfootball.com

Celebrity Obsession

Stoke City’sCameron Jeromebemoans the Barcelona fans: ‘Managing Barca on FM. Just signed myself for £6.5m. The fans are disappointed. They haven’t even given me a chance.’

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Sky Sports’Andy Burtonconfuses fiction with reality: ‘I signed Tal Ben Haim for Burnley from Portsmouth. I was sent to Fratton Park to cover a game for Sky and he walked past. I said “What are you doing here?” He looked at me as if I was mad.’

Robbie Fowlerrecalls a pre-season when he played for Liverpool: ‘There were so many new faces I needed Championship Manager just to keep up.’

Robbie Williamsblogs in 2009: ‘Addicted to FM AGAIN. They warned [my wife] Ayda what could happen but I don’t think she was quite prepared. I snapped the disc because it all got too much. However (two days later) I re-ordered it.’